Alex's Adventures Underground
by The Silvertine
Summary: The adventures of one slightly-demented 19-year old in the occasionally-macabre and slightly-demented realms beneath her linen-cupboard.
1. The Lifting Descent

1. A lifting descent.

The room is grey in the afternoon light, the beams glinting wanly of tin foil, glass and steel. A forest of accessories and ingredients sprawls across the coffee-table, and beyond this sward there is a couch. A young woman lies there, her short raven hair slicked-down by sweat. Her face is glowing, her breath shallow but regular. Umbral crescents swell within her armpits.

Her eyes are open, staring into the ceiling and a thousand miles away. They glaze, as her breathing deepens. Across her face a smile is slowly crawling its way, spreading like moisture through a thick piece of paper. It is impossibly wide, almost maniac. She begins to reach out a hand as her eyes begin to dim.

The world is awash with colour, a meld akin to ink drawings dropped into a murky puddle.

It was a bright morning when Alex opened her eyes. The sun was out, beaming down on everything, and the light lanced through her eyelids and forced them open. She looked out of the window at the world beyond the curtain lace, at the house across the way. She rose, stretching, her muscles expanding and her joints clicking back into place. Her neck crackled like arid matchwood.

The first thing she noticed, much to her surprise, was a mouse.

"Odd," thought Alex, "we've never had a problem with mice before."

There was something unusual about this mouse, although this was in no way evinced by the way it moved or spoke. Indeed, its voice was quite pleasant to the ear, with a liquid, Celtic lilt.

"Tis nay good," it said, "Ah'll nay make it afore the red-rain comes!" and then it ran from the lounge room, out through the door, and into the hallway.

"How peculiar," thought Alex. She was not at all used to seeing little mice run through her lounge room, cursing time, or the lack thereof, in Gaelic accents. She got up and followed into the hallway, curious, and saw that the mouse had vanished. There was nothing to gauge its location by save for a few droppings at the base of the linen-cupboard door.

Alex opened the door, and looked in. There was nothing there. The old rain coats hung in a tangle of polyester and vinyl vines. Murky darkness shone at the back.

Alex went into the cupboard, and pushed through the bed sheets and tea towels, and after some time doing this it began to occur to her that not only was she yet to find the mouse, but that she could not recall her cupboard ever being quite so large.

Thoughts of this were put aside as a light began to shine. Alex pushed on, past duvets and coverlets, and came to a lift nestles amongst the shelves.

"How convenient, to have one's own lift in one's own linen-cupboard." It did not occur to Alex to ask herself why a lift was situated in her linen-cupboard, although a small and well-suppressed part of her had a desire to know why.

She pulled open the brass cage and stepped in, and found a little lever set on an axle beside the door, such as one sees in films from the nineteen thirties. At the top was written "Up", and at the bottom "Down", and the lever sat comfortable in between. Still curious as to the nature of this lift, Alex shut the brass cage and then pulled the lever downwards. There was a clunk, and a whirr, and the lift began to sink down into the floor. It sank quite rapidly, the ground through the cage a blur in the light of the single globe. It went on and on, and after a time it became rather dull. Alex began to wonder if perhaps it would never stop at all.

"Imagine if it shouldn't?" thought the young woman. "Then I should keep going on and on until I was swallowed up by the fiery magma beneath the Earth's crust. But it doesn't seem to be getting any hotter, and if it does then I shall simply turn the lever the other way."

After some time, things began to appear outside the lift. At first they were just cracks and little white fissures, but after a few moments lone livid scars poured light from the wall. They melded together, thicker and brighter until the lift was nothing but brilliance. It blazed painfully for a moment and then faded back into lines and cracks and razor-wide slits, and then the wall was featureless onyx.

"That was rather strange," thought Alex. "But then, this entire series of events is rather strange. I wonder if perhaps this was not the wisest of ideas."

The time to ponder this particular question passed by at that moment, as the lift came to a stop with a loud clunk. A long corridor passed away from the lift, with many large doors and many small doors and dark angles in which the shadows seemed to pool and collect and drip with heavy little sounds.

Alex pulled the cage opened, and entered. She walked down the corridor, stopping occasionally to try this door or that, and came to an iron chest. It showed no signs of a padlock or latch, and so Alex, despite what her better judgement might have said, opened it. Inside was a key, quite small and delicately-made, and quite clearly crafted from steel.

"What a sinister key," thought Alex, "and yet presumably it belongs to one of these locks on one of these doors, which leads me to assume that I can leave this corridor. After all, it appears that the mouse has passed through here, and yet I see no sign of his still being on this side of any of the doors."

Alex's evidence for this statement was the several pieces of mouse dung that were scattered in an aethereal trail along the floor. They led to the door at the end of the corridor, which was the largest and most sinister of all, and appeared to vanish beneath it.

Alex decided to follow the mouse. In such a strange place, it was best to cling to constants, (however inconstant they might be). And so she went to the large, terrific door, and tried the key in the lock. She attempted to turn it, but it didn't move a millimetre.

"Blast!" she muttered. "I wonder if there's anything fouling the lock." Alex put her eye to the keyhole and looked through, but she couldn't see a single obstruction. What she did see had a far more profound impact upon her, however. It was broad, lovely parkland of willows and fountains and broad stretches of blood-red flowers. Compared to the dark, slate-shod corridor, it was Nirvana.

Alex tore at the door. She tried desperately to break her way through. The beauty of the place, incomparable, defied easy description. Her palms were grazed from her attack upon the door.

Falling down, cursing, she began to cry. Her tears fell from her in long streamers, running along the ground, wrapping around her and dragging her down. She got up and waded through the sea of mourning, pulled-open the iron chest in a search for another key. There was a only a little black bottle, holding perhaps fifty millilitres, and carven in the shape of a skeleton clutching to a gravestone. Alex paused.

"What is this? Some kind of poison, or potion?" she took the top off and sniffed. A jet of crimson vapour shot from the vial and swirled around her head. Queer vespers seemed to dance amidst its volume. "Perhaps it is a poison, but as I am in no way particular, I shall follow through nonetheless. After all, I have never seen a poison that had ghosts in it."

Armed with such dubious logic, Alex pinched her nose and took one long drink. The potion went down like ice water, but left a warm glow in the pit of her stomach. She began to tingle all over, as though she had been lying in one position for far too long. Her nose itched. Then her skin itched. Then she was on fire. Alex fell screaming to the floor, wracked with pain, and held-up her hand in confusion. The member began to boil away in a thick incarnadine cloud. It fell to the ground, heavy like mist. It roiled around the quartet of fleshly pillars, and dragged her down screaming to evaporate in rosy hues.


	2. The Picnic Runs Awry

2. The picnic runs awry.

Space and time become one and the other, and are dispelled. The pores of the earth open-up and the negative view shows the crevices burning with inverted shadow. Sliding across the face of eternity, passing two millimetres and a million miles, the whispers at the corners of reality. There are moments when certainty and doubt create gaps in the fabric of perception, and vacuous Charibdys or snatching Scylla writhe forth and clasp at the freshets of dispersed individual. She no longer screams. She has no mouth, no mind capable of comprehending fear. She is she, slipping and sliding through a labyrinth of chance, variables, and heartbeats of indecision. There is only the realisation of control lost, as a gate closes shut behind her, seams reseal themselves seamless, and the anti-actuality spewed-forth a coalescing entity to land steaming, streaming effluvia of unreal onto the floor of a new world.

Alex fell to the ground, heaving. Her heart pounded like a bass drum. The blood in her ears was roaring. The world was covered in a veil of insubstantial crimson gauze.

"That wasn't right," she thought. "What the hell was that? Still, what does one expect when she drinks an unmarked bottle of clearly-magical fluid?"

She was half-way between a sprawl and a crouch, and atop a floor of dusty flagstones. She looked up, and saw a road, and realised that she was on a footpath. This footpath was in the middle of a forest, with no signs of habitation, but Alex discounted this and focused more on the concrete fact of the carriageway.

She got up and, pondering to herself, decided to follow along the way to her left. After some time in this direction she paused, because she had come-up behind what appeared to be a rat. It was slightly-less than five feet tall, a deep-brown in colour, and was walking along on three of its legs aided by a cane. It was also balding.

"Hello," said Alex, not entirely certain of how to approach a giant rat. The animal's head snapped about, and its eyes shone glassily. It grinned, exposing several worn and rotted incisors, one broken-off at the root.

"Hello," it said, wheezing.

"What brings you through these parts?" asked Alex. "Would you like some help? I mean, with your leg and all."

"I'm fine with my leg!" barked the rat. "Don't touch it. Don't touch me."

Alex was both surprised and slightly offended by this. She digressed, however.

"Have you been travelling long?" she asked.

"No."

"Oh, well how long then? I've only been at it for a little while myself, but I've founded it very interesting so far."

The rat glared at her and grinned again. She could smell the whisky.

"A few moments," it said. "I was living away back in the shanty town, but then the Cataclysm destroyed it. Had to flee. Lost the leg. Just vanished away with a whiff of red smoke."

"How peculiar." Alex did not think it would be wise to admit her part in it all.

"Others, too," continued the rat. "Birds, men, lizards, crustaceans. Some escaped, but others were washed along by the Cataclysm."

"Dreadful."

"And you?" said the rat, its scabbed head levelling on her. "What brings you along the road?"

Alex baulked. She raided her mind.

"Oh, just for a lark," she said.

"A lark?" replied the rat. "You have peculiar conceptions of a lark."

After some time walking along, a number of other animals drew level with them. Some were quite large, and some quite small. There were larks, finches, parrots, cats, ferrets, lions, and amidst them things of a darker persuasion, with uncertain limbs and teeth that shone silvery in the light. Eventually the road became quite crowded with refugees, and everyone began to sit and rest. They were all fairly tired from the walking.

"I'm exhausted," said a finch. "I haven't walked so in years. My legs are burning."

"Why not fly?" suggested Alex, and immediately wished she hadn't. The finch, which had been facing the other way, turned to reveal hideous burns and bulbous, gourd-like growths. Half of its face had evidently been burnt away, and the left wing was only a chard nub.

"I'm very sorry," said Alex. "I had no idea..."

"It's well you didn't," said the finch, "or I might take some pleasure in showing you how to be more respectful of the misfortune of others!" It pounced at her with a half-hearted snap of its beaks. Alex stumbled off to find a calmer seat amongst the bivouacked.

As she sat there, Alex grew hungry.

"I don't suppose that anyone here might have any food to eat," she thought glumly to herself. Several animals around seemed to understand the dark look that was spread across her face. Many were wearing the same look themselves. It was a marvel that it didn't wear-out from over-use.

"Unlike butter, a feeling is more pronounced when spread," Alex reflected.

Finally, a cassowary with a scorched abdomen rose and voiced the opinion of the majority of beast, namely, that they were hungry, and was there anywhere from which some food might be had.

"Perhaps some nuts and berries," called the finch. It had regained its composure after the faux-pas.

"Are there any?" said the rat. It had been the first to stop for a rest, and as a result somehow come into the role of impromptu chieftain. "Look around. Who are least damaged? You go look. Do it, I say." The commanded animals did not budge. "DO IT!" screamed the rat. The animals slinked off into the trees, muttering.

Perhaps ten minutes later they reappeared, and announced a copse of apple-trees several hundred meters away.

"And?" said the rat.

"And what?" relied one of the animals, a gazelle.

"And why the hell haven't you brought any back, idiot!" yelled the rat. The foragers turned tail and ran at the sharp looks of the gathering.

"He's rather an authoritarian isn't he?" remarked Alex to a butcher bird.

"Aye," said the bird, "but yi'll nay tell me they'd've risponded t'any udder?"

"Alex, wisely, did not tell him that. Instead she remained quiet and slightly ashamed of herself, and reflected upon how lucky it was that the rat hadn't ordered her off to find food.

After a few minutes the chain of supplies began to arrive. The uninjured animals, huffing under their loads and cursing their lack of thumbs, dropped the apples onto the trampled grass and the animals began to eat their fil.

"This was a fine idea," said the finch. "Whose was it?"

"The rat's, I believe," said the cassowary. The rat remained silent, for he was a most agreeable animal, and more than happy to allow the two instigators their misperception, Alex ate an apple and enjoyed it thoroughly. She was of the mind that if the finch was so stupid as to forget suggesting something, it certainly wasn't the animal to start putting on pedestals. Or was it? She wasn't entirely sure.

A lion, basking, growled.

"This is all well and good," it said, "but as to us carnivores, how do we eat?"

"Perhaps you should hunt something," said a roebuck. The lion baulked.

"Hunt?" it said. "Why, I never hunt! I am the king of beasts. It is for my harem to procure the meat!"

This harem was decidedly lacking, and the roebuck was quick to point this out.

"True," said the lion, "which is why the procurement of meat is such a pressing issue at this time."

"I would have to agree with His Majesty the lion on this," said one of the sharp-toothed, shadowy things. As it spoke, its eyes glittered and its jaws clicked and spewed-forth drool like an opened tap.

"Most definitely," said a dragon, its stomach rumbling. The other carnivores joined in with their assent.

"Well, then go off and hunt for the lion," said a gibbon. "You won't get very far complaining."

"Hunt, eh?" said the lion. "Too true, too true. And what does the rat think of all this?"

Every animal looked to the rat expectantly. Alex craned her neck to see through the forest of haunches and dewlaps. The rat, beckoning for a space to be cleared around him, sat with the air of a Buddha and looked around imself, seeming very wise. Alex coiuld not help feeling impressed.

"It seems," said the rat, "that the carnivores must hunt, and, I myself being of the omnivorous persuasion-," There was much ooing and ahing at this surprise revelation. "-, the plight of the poor beast is far too clear to me. I myself hanker after hot red flesh, and would more than happily hunt for it, too. Except-,"

Ears pricked.

"Except that my leg is gone, and as a hunter I am now useless. And observe the lion, in similar straits, his left paw clearly bruised."

"It is very tender to walk on," said the lion. "I can barely do so without wincing."

"And the dragon!" continued the rat. "Oh the poor dragon!"

"The poor dragon, poor, poor dragon!" (This from the dragon itself).

"The noble dragon is clearly suffering from a case of asthma!" The dragon's cries suddenly became interspersed with harsh coughing and wheezing. The assembled animals sighed. "And the things, and creatures, they cannot hunt, for if they were to do so then who would care for the poor lion and dragon?"

"Who indeed?" asked the animals. Alex leant forward.

"And so we see that you must hunt for us," said the rat, "to ensure that these horrible ailments do not drag our fine comrade the dragon, and His Majestic Highness the lion, down to the grave."

The animals murmured amongst themselves.

"But we can't hunt," said a possum. "We're herbivores, or insectivores at best!"

The animals joined in with cries of "oh yes" and "totally inept at it".

"Well then," said the rat, in a sad, tremulous voice, "there is only one thing for it. Our friend, and our king, shall die, and the carnivores who tend them shall waste away from hunger, weeping over the corpses of the noble fallen." The carnivores nodded and looked very sad. One jackal actually burst into tears, which greatly moved the herbivores and was a decider for popular opinion. None of them seemed to realise that the jackal had stubbed it's toe.

"Please, is there nothing we can do?" begged the animals, weeping for their doomed compatriots.

"Nothing," said the rat. "Except."

"Except?"

"Except perhaps, one thing. My friends, my companions, my brothers and sisters in calamity, if by chance only some of you might make a small sacrifice, that others could go on living."

"A sacrifice?" thought Alex. "This doesn't sound promising." She began to creep away slowly through the expanse of wildlife.

"If by chance you might suffer, that the greater good might succeed!" the animals cheered. "If by any chance you were willing to lay down everything for the good of the race, and not the individual!" There were roars of support. "If by any chance you kght give your lives, that those more worthy might live!" The roars were thunderous. The cries rolled across the forest like a cannonade.

Alex, a shrewd if oppurtunistic girl, fled. She paused only once, to snatch-up a mother fieldmouse and her babies and slip them into her trouser pocket. She ran through the woods, the protesting matriarch nipping at her thigh, and when she was at what she judged to be a safe distance she looked back. She saw the crimson, the washes of it, the feasting lion and dragon and thing and creatures, the jackal tearing at the bones and being batted aside, and through it all the rat, dancing and laughing and nipping hunks of carrion from the deceased. The finch and the lark lay dead, the cassowary was dragged-down a few meters from the glade. The few birds who could fly took wing, and those too small to be noticed crept away. Alex, blanching, turned into the trees and fled. As she did, she dropped the fieldmice to the ground and left them, looking back at the glade, mixtures of fervour and horror coiling across their faces.


	3. The Mouse and Its Motivations

4. The mouse and its motivations.

A lex, less than successful in her attempts to rationalise the carnage to which she had born witness, fled. She made her way through the forest, far too cool and bright and green and above-all pleasant to have possibly played host to the bivouac of a few minutes before. She pushed past bushes and hopped the moss-covered stones of a shallow, silver-skinned brook, her feet moistened in the burbling streaks of creamy foam. And after continuing in this way for some time, Alex paused, for she heard something.

"Hello?" she said, uneasily. She could not shake the suspicion that it was one of the carnivores, following her.

There was no reply.

"Hello?" called Alex again. Her heart was ticking slightly too fast from fear.

There was a rustling noise from a copse of polygala before her. In the heart of the green oval leaves, something glinted. Alex braced herself, breath catching in throat.

"Of all the ways a young woman might die, to be hunted and consumed!" she thought. Several steps were taken until a trunk pressed itself against her back.

Another rustle.

The snap of a twig.

From out of the copse there leapt the white mouse, its eyes gleaming in the diffused sunlight and its teeth bared, showing yellow.

"You!" it barked. "You've followed me!"

"What do you mean?" said Alex, less afraid now that her enemy was quantified.

"You chased me," the mouse growled, "down through thi pessage ind down thi lift and along thi corridor o' iron. Ye've persued me and now ye wish to strike!"

"It's not true!" said Alex.

"So ye deny it?"

"Yes! I mean, no!"

The mouse advanced, drooling and with a feral countenance. It seemed to have gained several feet in length, and was the size of tall, fat Jack Russel. Its claws were polished ivory.

"Leave me be," it said.

"But I haven't been following you, perse," the girl stammered. "I mean, I followed you at first, for you were so curious, but once I was past the doors I'd quite forgotten about you!"

The mouse hissed. It wandered thrice in a circle. It resembled a possum ready to strike.

"Get to me 'ouse!" it snarled, "ind we'll sort this out."

Alex did not budge an inch.

"Go, or I'll gut ye!" The mouse raised a razor claw and pounced, chasing Alex a few meters through the trees. It left off after a moment, but Alex could still hear it calling after her. She stumbled on across the sward, and after a few moments came to a house.

It was a very ordinary house, a Queenslander to all appearances. A letterbox out the front had "E and Q Weissmause painted on it, and the Q had a ragged claw-mark straight through it. There was a parcel inside, which Alex promptly stole.

"Vicious rodent," she muttered. "Damned if I'll have _no_ revenge."

With the parcel in her pocket, she climbed the steps to the front door. They were rotted and brittle, and stained all over with paint. The door, when she reached it, had three long gashes through the panelling, as though a tiger had been scratching to get in. It was unlocked, and she entered.

The light was dim through the thick curtains. It showed only the outlines of a worn vinyl couch and a linoleum coffee-table. A plant-pot in one corner had died.

Alex took a seat on the couch and waited. She waited for some time. She waited for slightly more. The mouse did not appear to be in any particular hurry. Bored, she tore-open the parcel at one end and had a look.

It was a wooden box, and inside of it was a small, unmarked vial. The fluid within was blue and reminded Alex of something. She unscrewed the top, and a small tendril of smoke wormed its way out. Eyes glittered within it, laughing.

"It seems very similar to the vial from before," she thought, "except that in this case it does not seem to be quite so virulent. I shall bear this in mind."

She put the vial in her shirt pocket, and the box in her trousers. The wrapping she stuffed down the back of the couch, and then she resumed waiting.

"This is very dull," she reflected, and decided to rummage. If the mouse returned, she would hear it.

There was nothing of interest in the loungeroom, but after a few blind corners a bedroom made itself apparent, and in this there was a cabinet and a chest of drawers. The first held only clothes and bots. Alex opened the second, and gasped.

There were dozens and dozens and dozens of vials such as the one in her pocket, and a stiletto besides. In the second drawer was a photo album, within which were several nauseating black-and-white images of shrews and voles in compromising positions.

"I know exactly what kind of animal this mouse is," said Alex, "and I am not entirely sure that I am still comfortable here."

She made-up her mind to leave, and went to the front door. As she did, she heard footsteps on the stairs.

"The mouse!"

Before she could think, she had shot the bolt on the door.

A few moments later, there knob rattled.

"What thi hell be this?" said the mouse. "Who's gone ind locked me door? Lassie, open it, lassie. Come now, I'll nay harm ye!"

The door rattled again, and Alex backed away. Unconsciously, her hand strayed to the vial in her pocket.

"Come now, lass," said the mouse. "I don't know what I've done to upset ye, but you can be assured I've no ill-feelings t'wards ye."

Alex remained.

"Now lass, ye're trying me patience. Open thi door!" The door shook as the fat little creature slammed into it. The hinges groaned.

"What do I do?" thought Alex. Her fingers twirled the vial.

"OPEN THI DOOR, LASS!" screamed the mouse. "Open it or I'll do more than KILL ye!"

"What do I do?" Legs took her to the mesh-covered windows as her fingers undid the cap.

"NOW, lass!"

A mechanical click through the wood.

Alex gasped, and almost choked. The blue fluid burnt its way down her throat as she asked herself why she had drunk it. All questions faded as ice wrapped around her. The world grew more and more definite as she faded into spectral hues. The door exploded of its hinges and the mouse loomed all around as Alex lost her form and formed a being in name alone. She had no hands to hold-out, no feet to walk with, and yet she could walk and grasp. With one belt of her distorted limbs she felled the mouse, and with another robbed it of its pistol. She passed through the door in a whisper of air, and fled into the garden.

A lizard with a machete stood at the foot of the stairs, smoking a dog-end. Alex snatched it from him, and the lizard gasped and rattled its pebbly frill. At its cry two guinea pigs appeared from where (presumably) they had been guarding the backdoor. Their eyes were fogged and they were toting cricket-bats wrapped-around with barbed-wire.

"That sick freak," she thought. "Paranoid addict."

She blew-off down the road, into the trees, deferring her revenge because her body was rapidly coalescing around her.

The experience of having her body reform was quite disturbing for Alex. It moulded itself around an invisible framework, taking shape in shades of blue that were slowly joined by yellows and reds and blacks and whites until all of her colours were in appearance and she was entirely opaque. It felt like nothing so much as standing naked and damp in a cool breeze.

When Alex was all there, and certain that nobody was following her, she kept-on through the forest. Quite wisely, she avoided the road.

There was nothing of any note to see beneath the trees. Alex, who was no stranger to foliage, remarked on this or that, but after a time she began to wonder where exactly she was going. She wondered this especially for she was certain that she could smell something. It was a dirty, musky, musty scent, and it was coming from behind her.

She turned-around, and baulked.

A wolf was standing there.

"Hello," said Alex.

"Hello," growled the wolf.

"I don't suppose that you're a friendly wolf, are you?" asked Alex.

"As friendly as any wolf can be."

Alex relaxed with a sigh.

"Of course, no wolf can ever be friendly, unless it is full."

"Are you full?" asked Alex.

"Not as such," said the wolf. "I am, in fact, quite famished."

The long, thick tongue lolled.

Alex ran.

She ran as fast as she could, across the ground between the boles over the moss under boughs by the brook and through a gully. She ran so fast that she seemed to stand sill, and the world turned away beneath her. Everything faded and became blurry around the edges.

"Wolves run faster than humans," said the wolf. It was pacing her easily, and its tongue still lolled.

"The mouse is seeking you," it said. "You escaped it. I am hungry, and so shall aid it."

Alex recalled something with a start, froze, and turned. The barrel gleamed in the sunlight. The pistol and the wolf both barked. The pistol barked louder.

Blood pooled around Alex's feet, and she felt ill. She looked at the wolf, its eyes suddenly glass, its fur suddenly cotton. Then she stoped, and stroked it.

She started.

The wolf's eyes were glass, and its fur was cotton. Its tongue was velvet, and its teeth were porcelain. It was only a stuffed dog, albeit one with excellent stitching and a well-stuffed body.

"That was odd," said Alex. She calmed, knowing it was only a toy, then became frightened, wondering how a toy could pursue her. She left, and practiced the principle of out of sight, out of mind.

After a little while she grew tired. She was exhausted. She blamed this principally upon her super-human run. Looking around for somewhere concealed to rest, she saw a mushroom, and began to pull herself up.

The caterpillar atop it leant down, its faceted eyes gleaming, took one long pull of its cigarette, and then exhaled the caustic smoke across Alex's face.


End file.
